BRYANT BASKETBALL AND MAX GOOD LEAD LIST OF HONOREES AS WORDS UNLIMITED ANNOUNCES 2005 AWARD WINNERS

Max Good Biography   /   2005 Men's Basketball Season Recap

         Words Unlimited, the statewide organization of sports writers, sportscasters and sports publicists, will hold its 60th annual Sports Awards Banquet on Sunday, Feb. 19, at The Radisson on Post Road in Warwick. The reception will begin at 5:30 p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m.  Tickets are priced at $30 each and may be obtained by contacting Johnson & Wales University director of athletics John Parente at (401) 598-1604 or any Words Unlimited member.

        Highlighting the list of award winners is the Bryant University Men's Basketball team which will receive the Story of the Year Award for 2005, while head men's basketball coach Max Good has been tabbed as the 2005 Male Coach of the Year.

         The Bryant men's basketball team took the region by storm last season, capturing the school's first NCAA Northeast Regional Championship and advancing as far as the NCAA Championship game in late March.  Max Good, now in his fifth year at Bryant, has guided the Bulldogs to two-straight NCAA Championship games and 48 wins in the last two seasons. 

         Following is a list of award recipients for the 2005 calendar year:

            Hall of Fame inductee, John Gillooly - A Cranston native, Gillooly has covered high school sports for The Providence Journal for nearly 40 years. Over the last 20 years, the Cranston East High alumnus has overseen the selection of The Journal's All-State Teams. Gillooly, who at one time was the sports information director at then-Bryant College, recently authored a book about Mount St. Charles hockey, "Pride of the Mount."

            Amby Smith Award, Wilma Briggs - A retired teacher, Briggs played for the Fort Wayne Daises and the South Bend Blue Sox in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League until 1954. Briggs was among the first class of inductees into the Rhode Island Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame in 2000 and is part of an exhibit honoring women in baseball at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

            Frank Lanning Award, King "Doc" Odell - A Fullbright Scholar at the Universities of Grenoble, Perugia and Valencia, O'Dell retired last spring after 52 years of teaching foreign languages at Moses Brown. During this period, he also served as an assistant and then head coach of the track and cross-country teams, and had a profound effect on nearly three generations of Quaker athletes.

            Bill Cawley Award, Dom Raiola - Raiola, 76, retired last year after a high school and college basketball coaching career that began in 1953. Raiola, who coached at the old Bristol High and then Mount Hope High, won championships in five different decades. He was an assistant for three years to Joe Mullaney at Brown University but returned to Bristol in 1985. Even though he retired from teaching after 43 years in the early 1990s he continued to coach at Mount Hope through the 2004-05 season.

            Male Athlete of the Year, Nick Hartigan - Hartigan will graduate as the greatest running back in Brown University history after having led the Bears to their first outright Ivy League championship in 2005. Hartigan received the Bushnell Cup as the Ivy League Player of the Year and was voted a Division I-AA All-American. He set Brown records for single-season rushing (1,727) plus career records for touchdowns (54) and points (324).

            Men's Sports Coach of the Year, Max Good - In his fourth season at Bryant University, Good led the Bulldogs to the NCAA Division II championship game with a historic run through the tournament. Bryant was seeded sixth but captured the school's first regional title with wins over Adelphi, Bloomsburg and host Bentley, each of whom won their respective regular-season conference championship.

            Female Athlete of the Year, Anna Grezebien - The 2004 Words Unlimited Female Athlete of the Year from Narragansett made her first two collegiate golf victories at Duke memorable. She won the East Regional and NCAA individual championships last spring and in the process led Duke to the national title.

            Women's Sports Coach of the Year, Laurie Feit-Melnick - Under Feit-Melnick's guidance the University of Rhode Island won the Atlantic 10 indoor track & field championship for the fifth time in six years and the outdoor track & field championship for the fourth consecutive year. Feit-Melnick's cross-country team finished second in the A-10 championship.

            Team of the Year, University of Rhode Island baseball - The Rams won the Atlantic 10 Championship for the first time in school history and advanced to the NCAA Championship for the first time ever. URI finished with a school-record 34 victories and won the A-10's East Division.

            Small College Achievement Award, Rhode Island College's Kyle Teixeira and Salve Regina's Eric Cirella - As co-recipients, Teixeira starred in soccer and Cirella followed suit in baseball. Teixeira, a senior from Warren, led the Anchormen to their first-ever ECAC Division III New England Tournament championship by scoring 19 goals and assisting on 11. He was named the Little East Conference Offensive Player of the Year for a third time. Cirella, a senior from Jamestown, earned his third straight Academic All-America honor and was voted ESPN The Magazine's Academic All-American of the Year. He led the nation with a .504 batting average.

            Story of the Year, Bryant University men's basketball - The Bulldogs set a school record with 25 wins (25-9 overall) and won the school's first-ever regional championship by capturing the Division II Northeast title. Bryant eventually reached the NCAA Division II championship game where it lost to Virginia Union.

            Schoolboy Athlete of the Year, Joe Mazzulla - A senior point guard, Mazzulla led Hendricken to its second consecutive state Division I basketball championship. He averaged 16 points, eight rebounds, six assists and 2.5 steals per game as a junior. The Johnston native was voted First Team All-State and was named Rhode Island's Gatorade Player of the Year. He also won the 400 meters in last spring's outdoor state championships.

            Co-Schoolgirl Athletes of the Year, Samantha Gawrych, Kayleigh Lotti and Chelsea Marandola - In an unprecedented vote three of the state's best-ever female athletes tied for this award. Westerly's Gawrych added the 600- and 800-meter state records to her 1500-meter and mile indoor marks. At the state meet she won the 1000 and 1500 for a second straight year and at the National Scholastic Indoor Championships her 800 time of 2:08.84 was good for fourth place. Lotti led St. Raphael to its second straight Division I state fast-pitch softball title by winning all 20 games she started. Lotti allowed only one unearned run, 14 hits and 25 walks in 127 innings. She struck out 282 and pitched 10 no-hitters including three perfect games. Johnston's Marandola became just the third Rhode Island schoolgirl to be named First Team All-State for each of her four high school seasons. She finished her career with a state-record 2,631 points and averaged 28.8 points as a senior.

            Schoolboy Coach of the Year, Bill McCagney - With Barrington High's victory over La Salle in the 2005 Championship Division Super Bowl, McCagney became the first coach in state history to win titles in four different divisions. The Eagles' 2005 bowl victory came in their second year competing at the state's highest level.

            Schoolgirl Coach of the Year, Karen Emma - Bay View completed an improbable rise from the bottom to the top of the Interscholastic League's hockey ranks by beating two-time defending champion Mount St. Charles, 3-2, in the state finals. The previous season, competing as a co-op team with Keough, the Bengals won only 1 of 12 regular-season games.